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“You did.”
After wiping her eyes, she flapped her hands my way. “Go do some investigation with Elrik. You take your time, hun. Have coffee if you want, since he turned me down. I bet he’ll say yes to you.” She leaned into my side. “You deserve to find a good guy, and I suspect that’s him.”
“I told you he’s not interested in a relationship with anyone.”
“Then he shouldn’t look at you like he’d like to kiss you.”
Before I could reply to that, she nudged me around the counter and spoke to Elrik. “Have her back before dark or I’m coming after you.” She pointed her finger playfully at him before lifting it and blowing off the pretend smoke from her finger weapon. “I mean it, you hear?”
I cringed.
Elrik laughed and got up, opening the door for me to step outside while she took a customer’s ice cream order.
We crossed the road.
“Ride with me,” he said, going around to open the passenger door of his enormous truck parked next to my car. “There’s no need to take two vehicles.”
“Okay.” Before I could figure out how I’d crook my leg up enough to place my foot on the running board, Elrik spanned my waist with his big hands and lifted me into the seat. He stepped onto the running board and buckled me in, frowning at me after the buckle clicked.
“Thank you.” My skin still burned where he’d touched me, and the fabric of my sundress had been between us. Flustered, I smoothed the skirt across my thighs.
“No problem.” His gaze remained on my mouth long enough I began to wonder if my lipstick was smeared or if . . . Nah, he didn’t want to kiss me. He’d made a promise to himself, and while he might be reconsidering it, the desire to do so had to come from him. I was going to do all I could to keep from tempting him into doing something he might not be ready for yet.
“Are we going to leave?” I finally asked.
He shook his head and jumped to the ground. “Sorry.”
“No problem.”
He shut the door, and my hungry eyes tracked him as he moved around the hood and climbed into the driver’s seat. After staring forward for a moment, he buckled and started the vehicle with a roar.
“Who do you plan to interview first?” I asked.
“I called the church and got permission to go inside the function room adjacent to the church. They told me where they hid the key. I want to look around before we head to the hospital. Sue’s going home today, but when I called, she said she and Alfred expected they’d be there until late morning. They want to check her lab work one more time before releasing her.”
“Do you think we’ll find anything in the function room that Detective Carter hasn’t already seen?”
He shrugged as he turned the vehicle onto the road with the church at the end. “We’re going to find out.”
We parked in the empty lot and went inside, turning on the lights.
“Look around,” he said. “Call out if you see anything interesting.”
I nodded. “They confiscated the church’s punch bowl. I think Grannie was as pissed about that as the fact that they arrested her. Since she’s used it so often, she considers it hers.”
“When this is over, we’ll get it back.” He rounded the table where the food and drinks were always set up and bent over to look in the trash bucket behind.
I hoped this would be over with soon, that we’d discover who put the Xylitol in the punch and why they’d tried to frame my grandmother for the crime.
“Nothing in the trash.” He waved to the door on the back wall. “What’s through there?”
“A kitchen. If someone comes early, like they often do around the holidays when they need to decorate, they can prepare their food there rather than bring it ready to serve.”
“Six is a small group for something like that.” He strode toward the door, and I followed. I’d found nothing suspicious so far, but the place would’ve been cleaned by the janitor—who we could also question.
“The church congregation is much larger, but only a small group gets together weekly for the social club. This group of six have been meeting here every single Saturday night for years.”
“Amazing.” He opened the door to the kitchen and waved for me to enter ahead of him.
